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Apr 11, 2012

Positive Discrimination

Discrimination in
itself is a phrase with a negative inclination, distinguishing people on the
basis of caste, color, sex, religion and the like. Conversely in this write-up
I am attributing positivity to this non-positive theme thereby stupefying my
respected readers. But this write-up is only to pop out the positive element of
discrimination; hence the name positive discrimination.

We are living in an
egalitarian world that promises equal rights without any form of
discrimination. But the irony is that the only means that is used in balancing
this tricky equation of equality is the discrimination itself or I must say
positive discrimination. To elucidate let me present some common examples.

Take the case of
seat reservations in transportation vehicles by women, elderly and the
handicapped persons. Accordingly such people are given preference over others
in order to ease their living or to bring them somewhat on par with others. The
50% reservation bill for women in various political bodies is based on
this.Likewise in tribal areas, the
backward populace is given enough subsidies to captivate the various opportunities
to develop.Locals are given more
incentives than outsiders to start their own firms. All this helps in making
these Godforsaken people to rise and shine. On the similar grounds the
financial assistance provided to the economically weaker sections in
educational sector also qualifies for positive discrimination. So here comes
the term discrimination in the positive sense. Poor and needy people thus get
benefited by getting discriminated; positively.

Now enough with the
plus points; let me turn the wheel to the drawbacks. It is rightly said that to
err is human. So everything that is a brainchild of humans is bound to have
some snags as well. And here in this case positive discrimination is no
exception. And the major drawback in this case is that the right of enjoying
the reservations is exploited like anything. By and large people that are the
eligible for being discriminated on positive basis are misusing the same very
meanly. The concept that was started to boost the spirit of social equality has
been badly captivated by bigwigs. As a result rich are becoming richer and the
poor are becoming even more moneyless.

People are passing
on the reservation rights to their progeny as if passing hand-me-downs to their
kin. As a result an indefinite loop populates in which a father passes his heirloom
of rejoicing reservations to his son and the son to the grandson and so on…
There is no break. And thus the white-collar jobs are mostly occupied by the
people carrying these reservation certificates acknowledged by their own
similarly qualified big Daddies. All this is turning into an abuse rather
murder of common aptitude.

On watching the
lucrative benefits of belonging to a backward area, people are greasing the
palms of district office clerks only to mark their certificates with the
magical word of “CATEGORY”. Shockingly many well-off officials are feeding the
shady officials with carrot to wrongly craft fake income certificates only to
make their wards qualify for the scholarship programs that are otherwise meant
only for the economically weaker sections. I seriously doubt if any
investigation has ever been done in this regard. Following the exploitation of
reservations, many other ethnic communes are emerging, claiming to be the real
beneficiary of the reservation policies thereby leaving no space for the
ill-fated common public who carry meager certificates only with an underlined
ugly word of “GENERAL”.

To end up this
never ending topic I would like to mention that discrimination in itself is not
an unimposing term in the constitutional dictionary. It is rather more
democratic, promising a better society. Alas it has been misrepresented now and
then. In order to facilitate the concept healthily, there should be a limit to
the scope of reservations. The only beneficiaries should be the technically
weaker sections and strictly minus the communes based on caste or religion. The
bottom line is that it’s only us or more specifically the one’s enjoying the
boon of positive discrimination that can iron out the wrinkles of reservations.
That’s the truth, the whole truth.